The Games That Gods Play
by MangoRamune
Summary: A world created to house the best and worst of the universe, bringing them all together for the final battle of good against evil. Failure means destruction, success earns no benefit but the return to normality. And the gods call this a game.
1. Prologue

There are a bunch of copyrights involved since this is a MASSIVE crossover, so I'll be making very sure to include the copyrights every chapter, even though I usually say it once and don't bother anymore.

This time around: Persona 3, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, and Gurren Lagann are all owned by the respective copyright holders.

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><p>He hadn't thought he would dream at first. Time had proven his assumption to be wrong.<p>

The ultimate sacrifice to become the ultimate barrier. He was aware of Nyx, somewhere on the other side, and he was aware of Erebus, defeated by his friends, but not gone. It was out there, slowly reconstituting itself. The human desire to return to nothing, calling for Nyx. It would last until human hearts stopped seeking death so ardently… Forever, most likely. If he could have sighed, he would have. If he could close his eyes and dream until he someday woke up back on earth, he would. But he was neither conscious, nor quite unconscious. An unmoving statue, barrier between despair and the End. He had to have faith…in the friends he'd made, and the lives he'd touched. By no means would he ever regret standing between Nyx and Erebus. His wait would be long. Maybe it would be fruitless. But they deserved a chance, and had to hang on…to something…anything…

_Hope._

A warm hand, soft as the touch of a loving mother lighted on his cheek. He hadn't known he could still feel. Erebus' attacks had never caused him any pain. He had no real sight to speak of, but he could sense the being before him as an eminence, shining brightly in the void.

_Who…?_ He wondered.

_You are the hope of this world. You are the one who resisted the desire to fall. I am Hope, and I shall have need of you in the coming age. _

With no warning, he found himself whole again, before the owner of the voice. Her figure was hazy at best, but her eyes, when he could see them, looked at him gently, and he knew she hadn't lied. She was Hope. The stirrings of Erebus interrupted his stupor. The barrier was there, but he was no longer attached to it, and Erebus knew it. It rose to attack, but wilted into formless shadow before the light of the being before him.

_Will you lend yourself to me?_

At the time, he had looked at his Earth, and thought of his friends. Few years had passed, and all it took was for him to consider that he might be helping their cause by agreeing.

_Memento mori. _

Only he was, in a sense, very much alive and they had died while he spent eternity waiting for his chance to keep everything they fought for safe.

"Hey, hey, hey, you cryin' in your sleep again, Minato?"

He felt himself reflexively reach to wipe away his tears through his waking haze. A warm hand made it first, but when he opened his eyes, Kamina was the only one there, and he was at rest against a pillar.

"She worries about you when you have nightmares," he said with an easy grin.

"They aren't nightmares," Minato murmured, turning his eyes to the sky. The world—_a_ world, one too large and unfamiliar in the placement of its continents to be earth—slowly turned in space; far away and utterly ignorant of the rolling, wildflower coated paradise Minato had occupied for longer now than he could remember. "They are dreams of the friends I used to have. Do you not have those dreams, Kamina?"

The man's grin widened. "Sure I do, but what's the good in cryin' over it?" He leaned back, closing his eyes. "They all fought well and lived well, and died with no regrets. You're the same as me, Minato. The whole world got to live for better or worse thanks to your determination. I wouldn't have bothered to come here if a guy like you hadn't already been here ahead of me."

"It's easier to be here with you around." He grinned. "Even though you're a bit noisy sometimes."

"Nah, you're just too quiet!" He crossed over to Minato, and threw an arm around his shoulders. "A man has to say what's on his mind!"

Minato laughed softly, and looked at all the gently curved pillars lining the solitary ivory walkway. It was their domain, stretching to both horizons without end. Utterly peaceful, and without incident. Every few hundred feet, there was a fountain and a circle of ivory benches, but there was never anyone sitting on them. Out in the wildflowers was different. He was free to go, but once there he was surrounded by the laughter of things he couldn't see, and the voices were always female. Once or twice, he had spotted the blurry images of young girls playing, but they were like mirages. He could go even further, to the world turning peacefully in the thinly clouded sky, but he had been warned not to be seen there too frequently.

The last time he had gone there… He had followed the goddess when she went to fetch Kamina's soul from his broken body.

Light washed over their backs, and laughter echoed down the corridor of pillars. A solitary girl appeared before them, clothed in red robes and carrying a spear. Her eyes were mischievous, and the laughter seemed to swirl around her.

"Yo!" she greeted casually. "I'm here to take you to Madoka."

Minato titled his head. "Madoka?"

"The goddess. Didn't you know that was her name?"

Kamina strutted forward. "I get it! You're one of those magical girls she keeps around here right? Are all magical girls so young?"

A scowl darkened her face. "I'm fourteen, you ass."

"Fourteen…?" His mind turned back. Yoko was fourteen when they met, and even though she was exceptional... "You're not exactly…shaped like a fourteen year old."

The halberd came down to point at Kamina. "You wanna die again?"

"Kyoko…" a new voice sighed. "You're so rough." In another burst of laughter, a girl with blonde curls and motherly eyes appeared in a golden gown. She was carrying a musket rather casually over her shoulder.

Kyoko sat the butt of her halberd on the ground. "What are you doing here, Mami?"

"I came to check on you. This is important, and they need to see Madoka quickly."

Minato coughed politely and stepped forward, extending his hand to Mami. "Sorry, Kamina is a little bit of an idiot."

Mami smiled warmly, and accepted his hand. "Don't worry about it. Kyoko isn't exactly easy to deal with either."

Kyoko frowned stubbornly. "What's with this weird atmosphere like you're both parents with stupid children…?"

"Mami," Kamina called. "How old are you?"

"Me? Fifteen."

Kamina glanced down at Mami's chest, and grinned at Kyoko. "I guess you can't catch up if you're not growing anymore, right?"

The point of the halberd came back down, and this time Kyoko took the position seriously. "I'll kill you, you piece of shit."

The laughter around the girls subsided, and the ivory stones lining the path lit brilliantly beneath their feet, heralding a distinctly floral gust that lifted them from the ground. The light subsided, and they were placed gently back down in a place neither Minato nor Kamina had ever seen before.

The sky was still above, but its light came through a frosted glass ceiling etched so delicately with concentric circles that it might have been ice. The underlying structure was distorted in a dreamlike fashion that reminded Minato of Tartarus. The architecture was a jumbled and nonsensical mess, but everything was covered in flowers and fluttering iridescent things that flickered in an out of their field of vision with the tiniest of giggles. It was too benign to be as disturbing as it should have been. Sane ivory pillars like those outside still remained, circling a single altar, where a warm pink light emanated from the figure of a girl.

Kyoko leaned on her spear, looking pointedly away. "You didn't have to call us… We were coming."

Mami smiled at Madoka the same way she smiled at Minato, and grabbed Kyoko's arm. "Don't mind us, Madoka."

The girls vanished, leaving them to approach the altar. Madoka was in a human form, which was new for them. Both had felt her touch or glimpsed the ghostly pink of her gown on the occasions she was close to them, but neither had ever seen this. She was as much a ghost to them as the phantom laughter in the wildflower-coated hills. And yet, like a memory too faded to recall properly, they were somehow familiar with this young goddess. The color of her hair, the gentleness of her golden eyes, her diminutive but undaunted frame, and even her near white ribbons summoned up a strange sensation that they had seen her in dreams they couldn't remember.

"Minato, Kamina," she said warmly and a little sadly. "Finally, it's time. You've been so patient."

"About time! It was starting to get a little boring just lying around all the time."

Minato couldn't suppress a good natured chuckle. "I'm a little glad something's happening too. What's the plan, Madoka-sama?"

Her light flickered uncertainly, and her eyes dropped. If she had known how much it would unnerve both Kamina and Minato, she would have held it in. "I wish I could say the wavering of your hearts was too severe for the situation." She stood, and descended from the altar. "Follow me."

The single altar room was all there was, so they were not entirely sure of where she was going until a hallway began to form in her path. What choice did they have? They followed her.

"I have been enlisted for a game between gods much bigger than myself… No, I suppose that isn't the correct way to say it. I have merely been chosen as the god in charge of the forces of good."

"Madoka-sama—"

"Just Madoka, please."

"Madoka, then… Why do you sound so upset? You seem like a pretty powerful agent of goodness."

Her frown intensified. "That's just it. I _am_ an agent. I'm not a goddess in the traditional sense. This form… is something I gained by breaking the rules and re-writing an entire universe. It was a momentary thing, to defeat my own witch."

"What's this about a witch?" Kamina interrupted.

"It's not something I have the time to explain to you at this very moment. What you should know is that I gave up my life, broke the laws of causality, and wrote myself out of my new universe to become Hope itself. Outside that used-to-be universe, I have no idea what my powers are. However, true gods, much larger and more formidable than me thought I was the best choice because of the opponent we will be facing."

"A god in charge of the forces of evil?"

"In title, yes. If you truly understand what I mean when I say I am Hope itself, you will understand why I was chosen when I say this… My opponent in this game is the Idea of Evil."

"Idea?" Kamina repeated quizzically. "But ideas are in people."

"Yes…and the Idea of Evil was born of people. People living in fear and despair who required something to blame their misery on. It's like me…an abstract thing. A concept given form. Only the Idea of Evil is born of many and begets more evil and despair simply by existing, where I was born by a single wish and I must be active to accomplish things."

"A negative feedback loop, eh? How do you fight something like that?"

"However you can," Minato murmured darkly. "So it boils down to a game of Hope against Despair, again. Who made this game?"

She stopped. The hallway ceased expanding before her, and turned to a hollow void. "…The third side created the game; the ultimate forces of creation and destruction that see and shape the whole of all universes. Unlike the side of the Idea of Evil, there are two and both are neutral. One is the Lord of Nightmares."

"That doesn't sound very neutral."

"I thought this as well, but she is a much bigger entity than me, or even the Idea of Evil. Our sources are, in one way another, humanity. She is…not so, and her morality and sensibilities will never make sense to us. The other force on the side of neutrality…" She looked back, directly into Minato's eyes. "Nyx."

A cold shiver rode from the base of his spine right up his neck and froze his thoughts. It took Kamina clapping him confidently on the shoulder to recover, but his hands had curled into shaking fists. "…What happens if we lose this game, Madoka?"

"The infinite zero. All time. All worlds. All universes. They will be returned to the nothing that both Nyx and the Lord of Nightmare reign over. I don't know if any bigger gods will survive it, but next to them, I am a very small god. So is the Idea of evil. And the infinite zero will return us to nothing as well."

"And if we win, they'll leave us alone?"

The hallway began to reform, and mere feet away, a bronze door of mind-boggling proportions awaited them. "Essentially."

Kamina's hands came down and ruffled the hair of both the goddess and Minato. "What are we getting all gloomy for then? All we have to do is win!"

Minato smiled and nodded. When Kamina brazenly approached the door and was out of earshot, he turned back to Madoka.

"'_Essentially_'?"

She sighed, but it was more worried than heavy-hearted. "Nyx is a very constant god. She is what she is, and she will definitely leave us be if we win. The Lord of Nightmare is different. She won't do something like go back on her word, especially while Nyx is involved, but she is…very whimsical."

It was a better answer than Minato was expecting, and it let him breathe a relieved sigh of his own. "Hope, Despair, and Neutrality… What are the rules of this game anyway? Is it just me, you, and Kamina who will be playing?"

She took his hand and turned toward the door. "All you need to know, you'll find out in there."

They walked toward it together, and the doors parted to allow them in. Though her shoulders were set resolutely, her fingers intertwined with his, and reached to do the same to Kamina's.

Both felt the small tremble of her hands in theirs.


	2. Arrangement Phase 1

Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, Gurren Lagann, Persona 3, Lain, Slayers, Ar Tonelico, Berserk, and Now and Then, Here and There are all owned by their respective copyright holders.

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><p>The room seemed a replica of Madoka's altar room, but only in form. A gigantic circular table took the center of it, plain and unassuming and yet strangely stable. The presence of the other beings there was causing everything else about the room to shift and yaw in ways far less inviting than the soft dream angles that Kamina and Minato were used to.<p>

"We were waiting for you," a voice that was somehow cold, but still amicable and humane said from one of the four seats surrounding the table.

Minato felt that chill go up his spine again, but it was gone as soon as it came. He thought he would be afraid or angry to be face to face with Nyx again. He thought any number of things might go through his mind. Reality blind-sided him, because Nyx had not taken on any of its godly forms. Not the huge, strangely mechanical object that had descended on the Tartarus. Not the golden egg, suspended within, or even the Avatar, with its black wings, too-white face and empty grinning eyes.

It came as Ryoji.

His eyes were decidedly unfamiliar; distant and amused as they gazed on the sides of hope and despair…and yet when they fell on Minato, there was recognition. There was that familiar sad smile, which he quickly hid behind his ridiculously lengthy scarf.

It brought all of Minato's dreams rushing to the front of his mind until he thought he would be overwhelmed, and his voice came out a wounded whisper. "Why…?"

"I felt it…apt. And it has been a long time since you've seen a familiar face, hasn't it?"

"So wearing his skin around… is supposed to be an attempt to be kind to me?"

Across from Ryoji, a young red-haired girl leaned back in her seat, chuckling in the sultry voice of an older woman. "Do not allow it to fluster you, child. The memories of both Pharos and Ryoji are very active within the Avatar. It could not forget the time it spent with you." She smiled, but her eyes were deep and unreadable. "It chose this form because it wanted to see you, and be accepted by you, human as that may sound."

Ryoji's eyes dropped.

Minato recognized the words as the truth. That apologetic look couldn't be anyone else's.

However, Ryoji's remorseful floor-gaze quickly faded into that same dry amusement that made him so unrecognizable. When he wore that expression, he wasn't Ryoji, but some entity larger than Minato who was merely humoring the smaller beings below him. He was the Avatar of Nyx. "What about you, Lord of Nightmare? You seem very cozy in the body of that sorceress. Is it because she summoned you once? Oh, but wait, those who summon you are supposed to be returned to the sea of chaos. As I recall, you returned her because you were moved by a man's love for her. Who is the more human of the two of us? Me, assuming a form Minato is comfortable with, or you…breaking your own rules for a love that had nothing to do with you?"

The two great gods grinned too widely at each other.

Minato looked to Madoka, gesturing at the two of them. "Are they always like that?"

Madoka smiled crookedly, secretly glad that she was no longer capable of nervous sweating. "They get bored easily, so they tease each other. I promise you they're not actually going to fight."

Kamina crossed his arms, an approving grin spreading on his features. "I like them! Takes good people to be so bright-eyed when they're so old."

A new voice sighed from the empty quadrant of the circular table. "Foolishness…"

The darkness on that side was near absolute. The only thing Kamina could make out were eyes staring in his direction from behind a mask, and the milky exposed skin on the lower half of a face, punctuated by black lips. Deep in his gut, for reasons he couldn't understand and didn't care to understand, he knew he hated the person beneath that mask; a deep, insulted hate that he had never felt for anyone while he was still alive.

"Who the hell are you?"

Kamina went unanswered, and his impatience quickly got the better of him. He had never wanted to hit anyone so badly for such insubstantial reasons. By the time he felt Madoka's gloved hands on his arm, he already had a foot up on the table.

"This is a neutral plane, and the angels aren't allowed to fight here."

He scowled. "What a bullshit rule! We're supposed to beat those guys, right? So, why not take out the trash right now?"

"Please calm down. The penalty for an angel fighting during the Arrangement Phase is disqualification, and there's no better match for Minato than you!"

He started to move forward anyway, shrugging off the little goddess trying to tell him better.

Minato latched on before he could lift himself onto the table. "Don't, Kamina." He nodded his head toward the neutral gods of the table.

Both of them were staring at Kamina with fierce, unblinking eyes. Predator's eyes. The light-heartedness they wore to cloak their true temperaments were absent, and he knew they would crush him like an insect if he continued. He had no choice.

"I get to fight that bastard when this Arrangement Phase is over right?"

Madoka nodded, not yet daring to be relieved. "That's right."

Kamina took his foot from the table's surface, deftly yanked the chair out, and sat down in as civil a manner as could be expected of him. But even as he leaned back and propped his feet up on the table, he kept his eyes on the masked figure who sat just across the wooden divide.

"I'll be expecting you."

Minato and Madoka breathed their sigh together, and didn't bother to point out that the seat was supposed to be for the goddess. The neutral gods allowed it to slide.

"There's always one hot-blooded one," Ryoji said, re-adjusting his clothes. "Always."

A thought occurred to Minato. "Wait, where is the god on the side of despair? Where's the Idea of Evil?"

The Lord of Nightmare leaned forward in her chair. "Well, it's—"

"The Idea of Evil cannot be present here due to its nature," Ryoji interrupted, sparing a quick, selfish glance to the Lord of Nightmare. "Madoka's circumstances are the only thing allowing her to exist as anything beyond a disseminated conscious presence."

Minato scanned the room again, not sparing his side of the table. "Are there not…two angels on every side?"

"You always were quick on the uptake. Yes, two angels to a side." He gestured to the air beside him. A short-haired girl stood beside him, where she had certainly not been there before. "This is Lain, little goddess of the Wired. You won't come across her very often, I'm betting."

The girl looked at them with eerie, blank eyes, but nodded politely.

"And this," the Lord of Nightmares said from across the table. "Is Lala Ru."

Unlike Lain, Lala Ru was just alien enough that her distant expression didn't make them uneasy. Her blue on blue eyes were ancient, despite her adolescent body. A glance was spared for Madoka, but she didn't even acknowledge Minato and Kamina's existence.

"What's her story?"

"She's water," Ryoji answered distractedly. He was scanning his clipboard. "The person on that side is Femto, one of the Godhand. He is not an angel, but the Saint, though he is probably the most apt to be here, since he has directly interacted with the Idea of Evil. The first angel on the side of despair could not be present because he lacks comprehensible form and is very much insane, and the second because his nature probably would have gotten him disqualified immediately."

"Is he some kind of uncontrollable murderer?"

"Nope, just a coward." He gestured to their side. "And to complete the introductions…Minato, the inheritor of the Wildcard, and Kamina…" He checked the clipboard again, and squinted suspiciously. "A mecha pilot?"

Madoka grinned. She knew she had chosen well, but now she felt as though she had hidden an ace up her sleeve. In a room of gods, spirits, and the otherwise ascended, Kamina, even next to Minato who was just as human but—depending on one's point of view—blessed, appeared unremarkable. "You will come to understand."

"If you say so." He sat his clipboard down, and it melted into the table. "The floor is yours, Golden One."

The Lord of Nightmare stood, her hands folded behind her back. "Welcome to the game. This officially commences Arrangement Phase 1. The first order of business: How to Play. The game is made of four sets of three phases: Arrangement, Attrition, and Confrontation. Arrangement Phases are to be used for meetings and planning and the exchange of information about the top tiers of a given side."

Lala Ru tugged on the Lord of Nightmare's robes, and whispered something in her ear.

"I suppose you're right. Lala Ru has suggested that I begin with the Tier explanation instead, since it is vital to the game. The Tiers are as follows: Absolute God, the Angels, the Divine Saint, the Prophets, the Pledged, and the Outliers. The first two are self-explanatory at this point, I should think. The Divine Saint is a single person who speaks directly with the angels and the absolute god. They are the leader of the living, and the job of angels is to work with them in directing the prophets. The prophets are four individuals of significant power. If you want to liken this to chess, they are your knights, bishops, and rooks. Their job is to be released to the four winds to gather more forces for your side, and to lead the Pledged." She paused. "You getting all this?"

Minato nodded, but Kamina merely yawned.

"Good. Those tiers are the ones I mean when I say 'top tiers'. The Pledged are the leaders of the vast armies and extreme powers that will make this a true battle. The Outliers, you will find, are the citizens that populate this world. They have no alignment, and it is the job of the Prophets to win them. Of course, if you cross them somehow, you may find you end up fighting with them."

"So for us," said Minato. "We need to be focused on the Outliers. The name of the game is to win them, right?"

"That should be your focus, yes. However, be mindful of the phases that I mentioned before. During the Attrition Phases, it will not be against the rules to attack. It is an opportunity to destroy the resources of your enemies. Similarly, your enemies will definitely be coming after you, and you will need to defend yourself."

"I see, a phase were only losses can occur. Attrition phase; clever."

The Lord of Nightmare and Nyx shared a frightening chesire cat grin. "We know."

"The Confrontation Phase only occurs once, at the end of the game. It's the war to end the game. Even if your opponent has but one soul left on their side, they can still win it. Even if you have gathered a force of millions more than your opponent, you can still lose. _How_ you win is more important than winning alone."

Minato's hearts sank at once. The game had looked straightforward until that particular addendum. Madoka remained calm, though her long eyelashes hung low, hooding her true expression.

Kamina took the direct approach. "How many phases til confrontation?"

"Five Arrangement phases, Four Attrition Phases, Confrontation, Game Over."

"Alright! Let's go meet our new friends!"

A single look from the Golden Lord kept him in his seat. "Rule 1: The Arrangement Phase is neutral. Minor scuffles are beneath our notice, but any legitimate fights will end in disqualification, _especially_ for angels.

Rule 2: During the Attrition Phase, angels must be assigned to particular sites, and they are to defend that area. The Pledged may move as needed, destroying and giving aid however they choose, but they are not to assist the angel. The Prophets, assuming they can reach the angel, may assist them.

Rule 3…" With a wave of her hand, she created a golden image of the playing field. The world was irregularly shaped; enormous, but flat, with a chasm in the center from which rose an impossible spire. Two strangely shaped islands hovered distantly around it, like moons. "Those are the three Ar Tonelico. Floating on the left, the Tower of Harvestasha; on the right, way out in space, the Tower of Frelia. The largest in the center is the Tower of Eolia. These three towers are holding up this world. They are its life. If all three are destroyed, both sides are disqualified."

"So…nobody loses right?"

Ryoji laughed. "Nice try. No, the destruction of the towers will signal the end of the world. It is obvious that people would give in to despair if the world was ending."

Kamina swore under his breath. "Won't it be obvious that the despair side will try destroying those quickly during the Attrition Phases?"

The Lord of Nightmare and the Nyx Avatar shared a high, reverberating titter that seemed to tear at them like cat's claws.

"If you see the world in such black and white terms, you will lose this game. Now, go. And play well."

A brilliant, but warped golden light fell over Minato and Kamina. Dimly, they sensed they were either falling or rising through an inconceivably vast emptiness.

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><p>Without warning, they were on their feet on solid ground. Both of them tumbled to their knees anyway, their sense of direction and equilibrium utterly shot. When they opened their eyes, they found themselves staring at a pair of black boots emblazoned with purple diamonds. They looked up, and met the dark, resigned eyes of a girl who could not have been any older than the goddess herself. A red ribbon and nothing else decorated her pitch black hair. She was diminutive, like Madoka, but in the frame of the stained glass window spilling multicolored light over her, she was as imposing as the Lord of Nightmare.<p>

"Welcome to the killing field," she said without humor. "Get off the floor and follow me."


End file.
